The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners is condemning a mysterious batch of robocalls that targeted election judges in an apparent effort to confuse them with phony information.
The Sun-Times reports that the automated calls reached Chicago-area judges this weekend saying they needed to undergo further training and cast a specific vote in order to oversee a polling station on Election Day. It was a "serious attempt to disrupt" the voting process here, according to the board, which has launched an investigation into the situation.
"Given the level of response that we received, we suspect it was a large number of people — we don’t know how large," board representative Jim Allen told the paper.
Danny Bravman, a Republican judge who's serving the 44th Ward today, alerted the board in an email that he'd received a pair of robocalls from a phone number with the area code 224 (aka north suburban Chicago) and featuring the voice of a guy named "Jim" advising him to take another (unnecessary) training session at a "very out-of-the-way" destination.
"If I call back the number, it says that the message originated from a marketing firm or a paid political organization," wrote Bravman, according to the Sun-Times. "I haven't received any official correspondence about additional training sessions. So it seems rather obvious that someone is impersonating the board of elections."
Whodunit? That remains a mystery—for now.
